The updater doesn't tell the problem.

[Oscar]

Binary package hint: adept

I get the little update notifier icon and I click on it. It tells me that it needs to upgrade some packages, I click OK and do the normal stuff. Then I get the error message: "There was an error commiting changes. Possibly there was a problem downloading some packages or the commit would break packages."
Then "Update complete, good bye". And no updates installed.

Not very good.
When running aptitude instead it gives much more information.

"Writing extended state information... Error!
E: I wasn't able to locate file for the conexant package. This might mean you need to manually fix this package.
E: Couldn't lock list directory..are you root?"

So adept lets me know the error and how to fix it (put the conexant package with the other packages) but adept would remain "broken" forever with no hint on how to fix it.

The conexant package was installed with the kubuntu package menu from konqeror. Perhaps it should be fixed so that that functionality doesn't break adept?

[Oscar (osh-nbit)]

Nevermind my idea on how to "fix" things. It was something bigger it appeared. However the original point still stands. Adept doesn't give any information on how to fix the broken database.

[magilus (magilus)]

maybe adept should automatically run dpkg --configure -a

[Hervé Fache (rvfh)]

Looks similar to 48627 too. Sorry for the spam! Also, I think Simon's
title was better than the ones from the original reporters (including
me):

"Adept should gracefully configure half-installed packages"

[Yuriy Kozlov (yuriy-kozlov)]

Bug 158043 refers to a different specific case where adept gives this useless error.

A spec should probably be written up to deal with the possible errors adept runs into when installing packages and ways to deal with them.
So far:
- Not running as root (this shouldn't happen in the first place and doesn't anymore as far as I know)
- Questions such as overwriting config files (shouldn't this be dealt with by the KDE debconf frontend?)
- Errors configuring packages

[tdn (spam-thomasdamgaard)]

I have this problem too.
I used a freshly installed Kubuntu 7.10. Clicked the little update icon and agreed to install the updates.
Then I get:
There was an error commiting changes. Possibly there was a problem downloading some packages or the commit would break packages.

When I press OK, adept tells me:
A new distribution is available! Click next if you wish to upgrade now.

This is a bit odd, because I do not think that there is a new distribution version ready?!

Also it tells me to click "next", but there *is not "next" button*. There is a "Version Upgrade" button. This is rather confusing.

I think this crash maybe broke my installation.
I am considering going for a reinstallation.

I think it is problematic that the updater in Kubuntu is so faulty. This is a very important piece of software. When an updater crashes it gives the user a very uncomfortable feeling that the entire system might now be broken.

[BrakTalk (masonfoley)]

I have this same problem. Installing 7.10 is fine. Then I am prompted to fetch a list of updates, which I do. Everything downloads seemingly successfully, but when it gets to "Preparing upgrade of linux-image-2.6.22-14-generic...", the aforementioned error occurs. This has happened on two consecutive 7.10 installs and subsequent updates.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Adept3 should be much better at giving more meaningful error messages when dpkg errors and such do occur.

[Yuriy Kozlov (yuriy-kozlov)]

Clarification: Adept 3 is a new version for KDE4. It is not offically released yet, but is on its way into intrepid and likely hardy-backports. Marking "In Progress" until it is actually available in official repositories.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Please try to get it in soon, before the feature freeze.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Fixed in adept3.0~beta1.